Branson, I love you buddy, but I disagree with your title here. There is no way to know if Gillibrand would win the primary with a 36%-33% lead. That is an absolutely pathetic showing and might open the door for more competition.

Up by only three over McCarthy isn't that good considering outside of Long Island, Gillibrand has a name recognition advantage

McCarthy has name recognition throughout the NYC TV market (which includes much more than Long Island) because of her husband's LIRR shooting death. She probably has the highest name recognition of the NYC metro area Congressmen. Gillibrand is still a relative unknown downstate.

McCarthy really isn't that liberal outside of a single issue and she has a pathetic fundraising record compared to Gillibrand. Gillibrand has more liberal in terms of government transparency and foreign policy, and has a fully liberal record on the environment and women's rights, and will have a liberal voting recording on everything else coming into 2010, so there will be less desire by liberal fundraising groups to spend big to replace her with someone else who will vote exactly the same. I think that makes sense. Why would people pay big money to switch personalities but not votes?

Maloney and Israel could both take down Gillibrand on a 1 on 1 primary, however. They have more establishment support than Kirsten. I'm not really familiar with Israel and Maloney's personalities, outside of the fact that they're bitter.

McCarthy really isn't that liberal outside of a single issue and she has a pathetic fundraising record compared to Gillibrand. Gillibrand has more liberal in terms of government transparency and foreign policy, and has a fully liberal record on the environment and women's rights, and will have a liberal voting recording on everything else coming into 2010, so there will be less desire by liberal fundraising groups to spend big to replace her with someone else who will vote exactly the same. I think that makes sense. Why would people pay big money to switch personalities but not votes?

Maloney and Israel could both take down Gillibrand on a 1 on 1 primary, however. They have more establishment support than Kirsten. I'm not really familiar with Israel and Maloney's personalities, outside of the fact that they're bitter.

Gillibrand has more of a fundraising record than McCarthy, but well she has had to. Gillibrand is in a much more Republican district than McCarthy. The last time McCarthy faced any real challenge was her 1st re-election bid in 98, other than that she has had no real need to fundraise. With that being said Israel would likely be a stronger challenge than McCarthy.

Outside of her being relatively unknown still (that's easily fixed with $30 million dollars), this could be a byproduct of people who preferred other people besides her to replace Clinton. If your candidate didn't get picked, you might be artificially more likely to select "no opinion" or whatever.

Gillibrand is 100% in the middle of both the Schumer and Clinton factions, but she's 100% out of the Bloomberg and other Democratic NYC factions. I wonder what will happen in the primary.

Stranger seems serious about running for the record. His candidacy could easily scare away some of the NYC Congressmen from running, since if the vote gets split too much, then they could lose their job (unlike Stranger who is up for reelection in '09, not '10).

We'll see. The underlying politics seem to be creating more vultures after her seat, but too many vultures and she becomes safe. The only "easy" candidates to get to clear the field are Congressmen who have to give up their seats to run.